I told him that I hadn’t known what kind of group the Brotherhood was or what they were going to do. I told him I was just trying to stop Mama from selling and that’s why I was stupid enough to follow Darrell and burn a cross, even though I should’ve known better. And I told him I was sorry. I said he was the best friend I ever had and I wished it hadn’t ended this way. And that I hoped, maybe, some day, we could be friends again. I wasn’t sure that last part would ever happen, but I still wanted to say it because I meant it.I thought about Thomas a lot, and not just because Mama told me to. I couldn’t help it. I listened to both the albums he’d given me: James Brown’s Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud and Edwin Starr’s War & Peace. I pushed the buttons on our Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots, but it wasn’t the kind of game you could play real well by yourself. Even when I got one robot to knock the other’s block off, it didn’t feel like much of a victory.
